One of the Recording Industry Association of America’s (RIAA’s) most certified bands of all time, The Beach Boys, earned May’s highest album certification, according to the RIAA’s newest monthly Gold & Platinum Program tally. “Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach Boys” (Capitol, 2003) certified 3x multi-Platinum just in time for the beach band’s 50th anniversary and first tour in more than two decades!

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Sun Jun 17, 2012 6:47 pm

I saw the Beach Boys a few days ago in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. They were fantastic. Last year I spent some time last year watching the DVDs of Brian Wilson's live performances of Pet Sounds and Smile. I told myself that I would go see him if I got the chance. So it was great to hear him do some of those songs and others in person. Brian sang well and was even fairly physically expressive, motioning during Marcella (one arm over my shoulder), sometimes pointing to band members as they played their parts, and once leading the crowd in starting to clap in unison.

Mike, David, Al and Bruce were great too, and of course the backing band.

Like all the other dates on this tour, we got our money's worth (47 songs). So many great songs, and all done right. Looking at the setlists prior to the show I attended, I would have rather heard This Whole World instead of Wendy (I like Wendy, too. NO complaints) But, I see the the next show in Maryland heard both of those songs, for 48 total! Then in Camden,NJ they did Getcha Back (a first for this tour, I believe) in place of This Whole World for another 48 song night.

The opening act was Foster the People. Mark Foster told the story of how his mom took took him to this same venue (Blossom Music Center) in 1992 when he was seven years old to see his favorite group (The Beach Boys). When the show started, this 7 year old boy became confused and upset because a man appeared on the stage in leather pants and a sequined shirt that did not seem like a Beach Boy to him. He asked his mom, "Is this the Beach Boys?" She didn't go to many concerts herself. She asked the people behind her if this was the Beach Boys. Mark and his mother didn't know about opening acts. That was David Cassidy! When the Beach Boys came out, he was very happy.Now he got to perform on the same stage with them. Foster the People came out and sang on Wouldn't it Be Nice.

Glad I went. Wish I could go again.

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Wed Jun 20, 2012 4:13 pm

Glad you enjoyed it. Can't wait for my show in August !

Today's Brian's 70th birthday ! Here's to him:

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Wed Jun 20, 2012 10:35 pm

The Beach Boys were on Q and gave an interview. You can watch a snippet here:

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Fri Jun 22, 2012 3:15 pm

From columnist George Will:

COLUMBIA, Md. — Three hours before showtime, Brian Wilson says: "There is no Rhonda." Sitting backstage, gathering strength for the evening's 48-song, 150-minute concert, Wilson was not asked about her, he just volunteered this fact. The other members of the Beach Boys seem mildly surprised to learn that the 1965 song "Help Me, Rhonda" was about no one in particular.

Not that it matters; the sound is everything. Attention must be paid to baby boomer music-cued nostalgia, and no one pays it better than the Beach Boys. They are currently on a 50th-anniversary tour that has more than 60 concerts scheduled and others still being booked. Their new album, "That's Why God Made the Radio," debuted at No. 3 in Billboard's listing, and with this the Beach Boys topped the Beatles for most weeks on Billboard’s top-10 album chart.

Their band began in 1961 in Hawthorne, in Los Angeles County, when the parents of Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson went away for a weekend, leaving the boys with meal money they used to rent instruments and record a song called "Surfin'." They rode a wave of fascination with California to the top of pop music.

Given California's dystopian present, it is difficult to recall that the Beach Boys' appeal derived not just from their astonishing harmonies (which derived from the Four Freshmen) but also from their embodiment of a happy Southern California that beckoned to the rest of the nation. Political scientist James Q. Wilson grew up there and in 1967, the year after the Beach Boys’ "Good Vibrations," he wrote a seminal essay on the political vibrations that produced California's new governor: "A Guide to Reagan Country." Wilson's conclusion was that Ronald Reagan represented the political culture of a region where social structure nurtured individualism.

Southern Californians had, Wilson wrote, "no identities except their personal identities, no obvious group affiliations to make possible any reference to them by collective nouns. I never heard the phrase 'ethnic group' until I was in graduate school."

Eastern teenagers had turf. Their Southern California counterparts had cars, the subject of so many Beach Boys songs ("Little Deuce Coupe," "409," "Little Honda," etc.). They hung out in places reached by car and with lots of parking, particularly drive-in restaurants.

"The Eastern lifestyle," Wilson wrote, "produced a feeling of territory, the Western lifestyle a feeling of property." The East was defined less by cold weather than social congestion — apartments in ethnic neighborhoods. Southern Californians lived in single-dwelling homes and had almost no public transportation, so their movements within the city were unconfined to set corridors. Houses and cars — the "Sunday afternoon drive" was often just to look at others' homes — strengthened, Wilson wrote, "a very conventional and bourgeois sense of property and responsibility."

When James Watt, Reagan's secretary of the interior, barred the Beach Boys from playing a Fourth of July concert on the National Mall in 1983 because he thought they attracted "the wrong element," Reagan invited them to the White House. This was almost a generation after the Beach Boys were dethroned but invigorated by the challenge of the British Invasion, particularly the Beatles.

Brian Wilson has long been troubled by mental illness, but he responded to the challenge of the Beatles album "Rubber Soul" with "Pet Sounds," including "God Only Knows," which Paul McCartney called "the greatest song ever written." The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper" was a response to "Pet Sounds." Leonard Bernstein called Brian Wilson, the Beach Boys’ creative engine, "one of today's most important musicians," and the Joffrey Ballet danced to Wilson's music.

Dennis and Carl Wilson died long ago, but today's band includes three original members — Brian, Al Jardine and Mike Love — plus David Marks, who grew up down the street from the Wilsons, and Bruce Johnston, "the new guy" who first joined the group in 1965. The Beatles dissolved in 1970; the Beach Boys are the first American band to enter a second half-century.

Boomers must be served, so Mick Jagger, who long ago said, "I'd rather be dead than sing 'Satisfaction' when I'm 45," is singing it at 68. In 1966, the 31-year-old Elvis Presley asked the Beach Boys for advice about touring; he has been dead for nearly 35 years but they play on, all of them approaching or past 70, singing "When I Grow Up (to Be a Man)" without a trace of irony. Southern California in their formative years was not zoned for irony.

I'll say it first: Of course, Little Honda is not about a car.

Is the story about Elvis true?

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Fri Jun 22, 2012 6:50 pm

Elvis wasn't touring in 1966.. (just sayin)

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Sat Jun 23, 2012 9:21 pm

Never heard that story about Elvis asking them about touring.

Interview with Al, David and Bruce:

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Mon Jun 25, 2012 2:31 pm

Unbelievable. After the additions of "Getcha back" and the instrumental "Pet sounds" into the setlist, the Beach Boys premiered yesterday "Our prayer" !!!!

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Mon Jun 25, 2012 3:02 pm

Nice! I had read somewhere that Al had been trying to persuade Brian to do Our Prayer.

Last edited by U.S. Male on Mon Jun 25, 2012 11:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Mon Jun 25, 2012 10:04 pm

U.S. Male wrote:Nice! I had read somewhere that Al had been trying to persude Brian to do Our Prayer.

I think it was Mike he was trying to get to add "Prayer". Anyway, it's awesome that they do it !

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:04 pm

Dean Torrence of Jan & Dean sent over a few pics from when he got up and joined The Beach Boys in Irvine, CA last month during "Barbara Ann". He took a crowd shot and then put his camera on Bruce's keyboard. Bruce immediately grabbed it and took a pic of Dean singing with the guys. You can see the pics and a youtube fan video of all that happening here- http://rockabillynblues.blogspot.com/20 ... -boys.html

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Wed Jul 11, 2012 2:34 pm

The song That's Why God Made the Radio has debuted at #30 on the Adult Contemporary chart.

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

javilu wrote:I just woke up and saw on Facebook the Beach Boys are almost certain to perform in Buenos Aires in October!Does anyone have any extra INFO? I'm walking through the roofs here.

That's the Beach Boys without Brian, Al and David. Mike and Bruce probably booked the show before the reunion.

Say it ain't so, Joe.This is the saddest day ever.Can't they come with Brian and Al? Dammit!

Are you a 100% sure?

Re: The Beach Boys' 50th anniversary thread

Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:09 pm

javilu wrote:

Rocker wrote:

javilu wrote:I just woke up and saw on Facebook the Beach Boys are almost certain to perform in Buenos Aires in October!Does anyone have any extra INFO? I'm walking through the roofs here.

That's the Beach Boys without Brian, Al and David. Mike and Bruce probably booked the show before the reunion.

Say it ain't so, Joe.This is the saddest day ever.Can't they come with Brian and Al? Dammit!

Are you a 100% sure?

At this point it is fact. The last Beach Boys concert with Brian, Al and David will be in september in Britain. None of us can say if Al and/or David will stick around with Mike and Bruce and even Brian doesn't seem to be ruling anything out. But since it was booked and the contracts signed for a Mike/Bruce show, it'll be just that. I'm sorry.